Colm Feore and Last Chances

Stratford was magnificent; it was rejuvenating to get away with my husband and my children and to not be worried.  It was liberating for all of us.  In a way, it was a relief for my mother-in-law, too.  It wasn't quite so pleasant for her but she was forced to combat some truths in her time away that must be a relief for her to acknowledge.

The matriarch's sister-in-law told her she couldn't visit again till spring; she takes too great a toll on her sister-in-law.  I think the matriarch was bit surprised by this.  Her sister-in-law has had cancer recently and her husband is suffering the early stages of Alzheimer's; dealing with a 98 year old is too much.  I didn't know about the husband when we sought this excursion for the matriarch.  Originally, the plan had been for a day visit but the mother-in-law wanted 3 days; I finally asked the sister-in-law for an overnight and she agreed to welcome the matriarch overnight.  But, over the course of the visit, my husband's Aunt told his mother she asked a lot of people.  I know the matriarch was upset when she came home.  She was upset she couldn't stay longer; she was upset she couldn't do another visit; she was upset her sister-in-law made it clear she would take care of her husband and not my mother-in-law in the future.  Only someone who has known the matriarch for so long could talk to her this way and get away with it.  I don't think my mother-in-law has ever thought of what she asks of people, demands of them.  My poor husband has been there for her his whole life and he has never been good enough and his Aunt told the matriarch he is as good as it ever will get.  And, she's got it pretty good.

The trip also tired her out; the matriarch spent most of the day sleeping and went to bed early.  I surmise the matriarch has never seen her life as someone else's burden; I don't know what gives meaning to life but being waited on all the time can hardly be pleasant in the long run.  I don't even know if one could argue it is her way of having control, some sort of independence; the matriarch has always seen people in terms of her need, even when she was much younger.  It only occurred to me, after listening to the matriarch's annoyance at her sister-in-law's remarks, that my earliest visits to her occurred when she needed to go to the Doctor's for a lady's complaint.  They were always for her to do something.  I feel so rejuvenated right now I can express pity and not resentment.

Orangeville and Macbeth

The matriarch has gone for an overnighter at her sister-in-law's in Orangeville; she got up at 6, got dressed and waited, expectantly, for the sister-in-law and her husband to arrive to pick her up.  She waited almost 6 hours; they were late.  Of course, my husband's aunt has had cancer recently and she and her husband are both in their eighties; but there are no excuses...my mother-in-law expected them earlier and was not happy they were late.  The Aunt and Uncle are doing this as a favour to me.  Tomorrow is my birthday and my family is taking me to see "Macbeth" and do lunch; we ordered the tickets last spring.  It, honestly, never occurred to me or to my husband we would be worrying about his mother's presence still being in the house for another winter when we purchased the tickets.  It really didn't cross our minds....

Lately, the matriarch has been extremely draining; she has taken to shaking her mug for tea if it hasn't been poured.  I find it rude and annoying.  My habit as her personal mind-reader has also become burdensome because if I am not around, i.e. in the bathroom, the matriarch will not ask for anything but wait expectantly for some unknowing person to attempt to fulfill her desires.  I know blindness can be a handicap; I didn't think becoming mute went in partnership with it.  Forgive me.  The mother-in-law is not here and my home is my own and it is very hard to decompress.

Though, to be honest, I can't help but think she is driving my husband's Aunt and Uncle crazy in her obscene quest to buy more man-size tissues; I bought her 12 boxes but, apparently, that is not enough.  Sadly, she will remember Wal-Mart didn't have them but Shoppers Drug Mart did and will drive the relatives bonkers going to each and every Shoppers in Orangeville to find more tissues....  Maybe I should have more sympathy for the poor sales clerk who is going to have to help 3 seniors: all over 80, 1 deaf, 1 blind, and 1 wishing he wasn't there.

It Just Crossed My Mind

This evening the matriarch went to bed with frozen strawberries, 2 peaches and an apple; how the heck does the woman peal the fruit?  Every morning, the mother-in-law brings her bowl to me with its pile of peelings and apple cores.  The remnants are for the compost.  She can only eat the soft fruit, hence the strawberries, but prefers to have peaches or nectarines at bedtime.  Somehow, she does eat them despite the tooth situation and, somehow, she does peel them.  There is a small knife in her room for fruit and whatever; but, I cannot imagine how she does it in the dark and practically blind.  Further, I have discovered the matriarch eats most of her fruit with salt; not the strawberries or raspberries, she piles sugar on them, but everything else.  She told me today she dreamt of her honeymoon trip when she was pregnant on my husband; she ate so many apples with salt, she gained 40 pounds.  She was six weeks pregnant at the start of the trip and less than 100 pounds and came back from the States weighing more than 140 pounds.  She was 40 years of age!  She really does have an indestructible constitution!

Why I am Going to Hell....

This morning, I got up did 2 loads of laundry and snuck (I like that word!)out to do the grocery shopping; I bought s Pepsi and chocolate bar at 9 in the morning and had a teenager's breakfast.  Sometimes, it is wonderful to be alone.  However, like the cat, I went back home...

Where the children, knowing there was basketball and swimming, were still in their pyjamas, and the laundry was still to be put away (it was folded, it was their's and it was still on the table) and breakfast was still to be had.  My husband was still in bed and my mother-in-law had obviously been up and had gone back to bed, chips replacing her Sugar Crisp preference for morning break fast.  So, as quietly as I could, I whispered to the children to get their stuff together, get dressed and eat.  Done.  My aim was to leave again, kids in tow, husband still asleep and mother-in-law still unawares in her room.  It was a good plan.

Child number 2 and child number 3 had a toothpaste fight in the bathroom...with yells and screams and my blue wall marked with Colgate.  I nearly killed them.  The mother-in-law woke-up just as the time to leave approached.  Child number 1 put on her tea and I made her cereal and toast and pills and had to wake my husband who had obviously been enjoying his slumber.  It is difficult enough with the matriarch here but the reality is there are the children's concerns and I will not let them down if they choose to do sports and dance and music.  I do try to arrange everything for around the same time and when my husband can cover granny care.  So I am not going to feel guilty for trying to sneak out a second time.  But I do...the children made it to basketball and swimming and I put the laundry away, swearing under my breath, and my husband took his mother for lunch and we all met again for 5 and I promptly fell asleep beside my youngest who slept, too.  Thus is our Saturday.

The Eye Continues

Now, the other eye is beginning to bother the matriarch.  I don't know if she is actually losing her vision or it is her current state of mind.  No matter the age, depression hurts and I know my mother-in-law is depressed.  My husband is home tomorrow afternoon and will take her for lunch; the children and I will get a break and go to the movies.  I feel like I am abandoning her but depression is contagious and I need my children to have a break and I need to know they can have the respite without guilt.  My husband will take his mother to Swiss Chalet and have a moment with her on his own.  I, at least, escape when I read at night; this would be very difficult if I couldn't read...that fact makes me able to sympathize.  My mother-in-law was a crocheter and knitter; her ability in these areas was incredible and her loss of sight has been tragic; she can no longer do anything. Books or plays on tape don't seem to interest her; although, I think I may have to try again with radio plays just to try to disperse this negative aura.

Long Days

The matriarch is still angry about the doctor and yesterday's visit.  She just has to work it out in her head and, then, everything will be okay. To be so lucky as to be 98 and have good health and be angry there is nothing to complain about...when she works it all out, it WILL be okay. Until that point, she will drive me crazy.

Today, I was asked to make the soup more "soupy."  It is tinned, at her request.  I added more water than usual; she refused to eat it.  The raisin bread didn't have enough raisins in it; she didn't eat it.  She did eat the popcorn made fresh this morning and all her fruit (2 bananas, pear, apple, last peach of the season) and her breakfast and dinner.  My husband thinks I have become paranoid about her diet: such observations are unnecessary.  He is probably right.  There is nothing to do but the mother-in-law drives me crazy because I feel she wants to do something and I don't know what it is.

Today's drive resulted in more complaints about her eye; if she wants to go out, she has to put up with the discomfort.  Tomorrow, I will suggest a Tylenol before the drive and see if it helps.  It is hard to have sympathy and not become exasperated; my husband is lucky to go to work...

The G.P.'s

Well, if I thought the Opthamologist office depressing, the G.P. office was more so.  The matriarch and I went for her check-up and up-date on the eye situation.  Both were duly noted, blood pressure checked, heart rate checked, weight noted and concerns about a sniffle dealt with--the Doctor smiled told the mother-in-law she was in good health and said good-bye.  She was devastated he did not want her to make another appointment.  It was as though she was left hanging.  Old age is not an illness; being very old and in good health is still not a cause to use the health system.  The matriarch has lost her one constant in her social life since she moved in and she is not happy.  The visits to the Doctor were like her social calls. 

We used to do emergency room calls before she moved in; she would call in an anxious voice, usually at two in the morning, saying she did not feel well and could I take her to the hospital?  There, she would astound the nurses with her age and flirt with the Doctor on-call.  But, times have changed and the emergency room staff do not have time to cater to an elderly woman; I do think they would if they could but...

The big concern for the medical establishment and my mother-in-law is quality of life.  The woman is healthy, eats like a horse and goes for walks.  What else can be expected of an almost blind 98 year old?  My husband and I do not believe in Old Age Homes; if my mother-in-law wanted to go to one, we would agree on the condition she could always return home if she wanted.  Sometimes the matriarch has speculated what it would be like: cards, dances, trips, meals not cooked by me.  In the retirement community or neighbourhood in which she used to live, seniors used to whisper about the state of some of the  Old Age Homes in the area; they were regarded with horror no matter the quality.  In some ways, it is degrading to have the state or somewhere private to have to maintain a senior in their last days.  When the matriarch bumps into one of her neighbours at the Swiss Chalet, they are always surprised to hear she is still living with us and still happy to some degree.  Then follows the tragedy of so-and-so who went into the home and their family forgot about them; homes do tend to alleviate a lot of family responsibility.  Anyhow, the matriarch has just gone to bed with a lemon cranberry muffin to put on her nightstand for an early morning snack. I will bring her some fresh water before I go to bed.

Moxies....

Well, it's a restaurant.  The food was good and my mother-in-law could see nothing of the restaurant.  She also couldn't hear the conversation among my children, my mother and myself.  Although, when we got home, she polished off a huge slice of cake, cup of tea, water, frozen berries and started in on the chips.

It was weird watching the matriarch interact with my mother...my mother tries to be helpful and doesn't realize she can tick people off.  The matriarch likes the conveniences of age: being the talk of the town, people's admiration for her health.  She does not like being reminded she needs assistance because she is 98 and blind and hard of hearing.  Even the old don't like to be reminded they are old.  As I have mentioned before, my mother-in-law has an ego and is not beyond planning a rendez-vous with a gentleman; this is her nature not her age or dementia.  My mother, I think, would find it hard to believe the matriarch would still be interested in men.  It makes for tension which my mother fails to pick up on; it is hard to understand but sympathy can be suffocating.  The matriarch doesn't want sympathy and there, really, is nothing left to offer her.

At the eye specialist's, we told the doctor the matriarch's eye bleeds when the wind blows on it, when she exerts herself too much, when she goes out for lunch.  He told her not to do those things; he repeated the adage, "There is nothing to be done."
This means, my mother-in-law can no longer go for drives with the windows open; she really shouldn't go for drives at all; and lunch should be considered an event.  What life is left if she cannot do these things?  Her world is becoming smaller the longer she is in it and any sympathy just annoys the heck out of her; it is a reminder.  So, she sits in her room; although, this evening she listened to the children practice piano but then left before they had finished.

Caving In

Sunday, we go to Moxies...the mother-in-law has been so miserable since the Doctor's I thought going out to the place I had gone with my girlfriends might cheer her up.  My gut tells me this will be an adventure of sorts; I can't even imagine what she will eat.  The children are delighted to know they are not going for chicken.  At least, it will be a Sunday lunch.  If the food doesn't go over well, the matriarch can always have a meal before going to bed.  Or chips. Or frozen strawberries or raspberries...I know she won't starve...

Tragedy at the Doctor's

Officially, I am now matching my mother-in-law bag for bag in the chipits/ sugar competition.  Stress brings out the need for chocolate--although they are the small bags of chipits as opposed to the 4 kilo sizes of sugar the matriarch favours.

The Doctor's did not go well.  First off, the man had no sympathy; he checked my mother-in-law's eye, saw no infection and made an appointment for 6 months.  No idle chitchat, no compassion for an almost hundred year old woman, just checked the eye and sent her on her way.  And, my mother-in-law was lost in the process.  I don't know what she thought he would do but she was expecting something.  Another appointment is not enough for her.  The matriarch has been articulating the truth doctors can do nothing for her but she has only realized the truth as immediate fact.  She is 98.  They cannot take the eye out for fear of killing her; the pain can be managed with Advil; there is nothing else.  I don't know what she was expecting but it was obviously something.  My poor husband has tried to get to her to think about something else; usually, she can figure something out and return to her normal, selfishly kind self in a few days.  But it is very hard to watch her struggle with the realization that when the Doctors told her she would go blind, they meant it.  I know she doesn't like living in a grey shadowy kind of world; she will hate the almost black one.

Then to make matters worse, today, the matriarch had an accident and didn't realize it.  When I told her I needed to change the sheets, she wanted to know why.  The matriarch has always been responsible for her own laundry--deciding when to give it to me and when she wants it back;  call it her form of autonomy.  I didn't tell her my reasons for laundry but I think my request mortified her.  It mortified me and I have cleaned up after accidents before;  she always been aware of the event and blamed it on illness.  But to not know is not a place I think she wants to go...I think I should start one upping the matriarch on those chipits.

The Lord and His Reasons

The matriarch asked me this morning why the Lord has left her so long on this earth.  She figures she has something to do...her life has some unknown reason or task she must fulfill.  Because I am not in a good mood, I asked her if maybe God was punishing me.  Never a good question.

The mother-in-law has outlived her whole family, most of her nieces and nephews on her side and is now beginning to outlive them on her husband's side.  Fate has a weird way of working; the matriarch has always measured people in terms of their worth to her.  So, now, she has no one to measure and she wonders why she is still alive.  I pointed out she still has her son and she has some worth to him; but, apparently, despite providing grandchildren, a home, chauffeur service, medical care and all round whatever you want whenever you want kind of care, my husband is of no worth to her.  How do you point out that maybe this is the lesson she is supposed to learn?  I don't think selfish people think in these kind of terms.

Anyhow, the cold is almost gone and my mother-in-law certainly sounds a lot better; today, we go to the eye specialist.  It is purely for on-going care and pain management, the sight is never going to come back in the eye.  But, I think, my mother-in-law hopes it will.  Ironically, last night, I went out with some very good friends for dinner and had a lovely time.  The restaurant was young for us, kind of swanky and the food was good.  In the midst of the eye discussion, the matriarch asked me if she would like the restaurant to which I had gone.  It was one of those questions with hidden implications: I think she would have liked to have come with me.  It was a night out celebrating birthdays in a way and absence from our worries; it was not a family event nor did the restaurant strike me as a family friendly place.  I think the mother-in-law would have been completely blind in the environment; also, I didn't want her to come.  Isn't that awful?  How do you tell a 98 year old with little time to live (unless, of course, she lives forever) that her presence wasn't wanted?  And, why do I feel guily for a night out?  The mother-in-law goes for lunch, twice a week.  Now, she wants dinner out--okay, maybe I am extrapolating too much.  But there is this fear that she is encroaching on more and more of my life,  maybe it is a punishment....

16 Steps

The only reason I am not completely obese is because I have to go up and down 16 steps at least 2 million times a day.  The butter tart rests on a napkin as I try to compose and censor my thoughts for today.  The matriarch has a cold; it is awful for her with runny nose and sore throat.  The closest Doctor's appointment I could get was for 1 week from today; she doesn't have a fever so it is not an emergency.  Still, she is uncomfortable.  My point here is I am empathetic.  I made soup for the matriarch and brought her juices without complaint.  All day.  She refused her dinner.

I, too, have a cold but can endure because I am supermom, the immortal daughter-in-law, who can travel endlessly up and down stairs and not mind request after request because I have no life except to serve.  Since 11 o'clock this evening (read that again: this evening), I have brought tea, water, peanut butter on toast, same peanut butter on toast only this time with jam, eye drops, and more water on individual trips.  It becomes a curiousity as to why separate trips are needed and requests can't be made all together.  Personally, if I wanted peanut butter and jam on toast, I would have asked for it; I wouldn't have asked for peanut butter and when it was brought up, add jam to the request and then have to wait.

My heart should go out to the mother-in-law but sometimes I feel as if she is playing me.  My husband tells me to pity an old woman but, you know, she is still a woman and a character with her own personality.  I cannot believe she didn't make these requests on purpose.  Is it a power thing?  Lately, I believe she is getting frustrated and I don't know what to do.  Right now, the matriarch has a cold; it is cold outside and wet.  Therefore, I don't think she should go out for a drive.  It's not like I am going out; I did note I have a cold, too.  Life pretty much is on the downside for all of us here right now; so why is she picking on me?

Thanksgiving and Illness

My mother-in-law wanted to go to Walmart;  the only condition I put on her coming here, and this was with her not my husband, was I don't have to take her to Walmart.  It is an exercise in futility and I hate the store; I don't shop there.  Whatever she wants is never there, ever.  On Thanksgiving Sunday, she got off after my husband from the time she got up telling him she needed to go to Walmart.  She wanted extra large man-sized tissues; they are the only ones she uses.  Now, we do a big deal for Thanksgiving; my parents come over, the children bake a lot, and my husband does the turkey.  Everything was interrupted as her quest for hankies had to be fulfilled.  Of course, they weren't there; last time, I picked them up at a drug store and she knew this.  Anyhow, my poor husband, who is not the most patient at the best of times, had to get after their service help, on a holiday, to look for these tissues.  And, the tissues weren't there.  Then, he had to explain to the matriarch about the tissues not being there.  At which point, she replied, "Well, they should be..."

Apparently, the service help was accommodating, but my mother-in-law went into a tirade in the store about how these tissues should be there.  So, my husband in a very nice way gently guided his mother out of the store, into the rainy, cold day outside and she promptly caught a chill.  Now, we needed the large sized tissues.  But, they were not to be found on a holiday Sunday.  Change of scene to our home and my mother-in-law retreating to her room upstairs to eat potato chips and mumble to herself about the weather.  Thanksgiving went off well; but, the matriarch, having eaten a whole bag of potato chips, didn't eat her dinner and told me the turkey wasn't cooked well enough for her to chew.  My husband, decent guy that he is, spoke up and said he cooked the turkey and it was fine.  I think he was getting annoyed at his cantankerous mother.  She did eat her dessert, a slice of each pie, apple and pumpkin, and the homemade ice cream.  The matriarch was in bed by nine, with a chill and slight fever.  And, no appetite.

As all this went on, my health and frustration level peaked; my children seemed to have caught some sort of cold; so our Thanksgiving ended with me reading to three sick kids, tissues (actually toilet paper) in my lap and the faint echos of my mother-in-law's snores.  And, I don't know what to do...the matriarch has a cold not pneumonia; she does have a doctor's appointment next week and I thinking eating potato chips all the time is not doing her health any good.  I gave her honey for the sore throat and Nyquil for the cough and am going back to bed myself.  The children survived with no fevers, chills or sniffles and are off to do their usual thing.  It's so trying sometimes.  The matriarch is a grown-up; but, those man-sized tissues seemed to mean so much to her...

Things I Never Thought Of

So, does a gay senior have a sex life?  The matriarch's former neighbour phoned today to talk about her new friend who could have been her boyfriend except he's gay.  Now, I really don't want to know the answer to my question but I do think a man or woman who is looking for companionship can be a boy friend/ girlfriend whether or not sex is involved.  I think.  The matriarch was giving her friend all kinds of advice and it was like listening to a couple of teenagers.  The neighbour is out to find a boyfriend; the mother-in-law told her she has to put herself out there, be social, ask if the wife is at home knitting...I couldn't believe it but then, of course, I could.  Everyone wants companionship; my mother-in-law would leave here and move in with a man who had a car in a heartbeat.  It would be a pragmatic decision, in a way; she'd rather end her days with a companion than her family.  Although, I begin to suspect she doesn't think she is going to die.  At the rate she lives, she could be right.  And, she could be back again when I am 80.   Anyhow, the mother-in-law gave her former neighbour all kinds of advice and most of it would have been applicable when I was in high school.  Maybe I should have gotten my single friends to listen.

The Problem with Age

This is not a very nice post.  Granted, we are supposed to take care of the aged and granted they have earned the right to say what they feel and to be treated with respect, but at what point does care and concern become servitude?  My mother-in-law is getting in the habit of waiting for her breakfast at the table; silently, she expects me to accommodate her and then rushes upstairs to be in her room.  Therein, she eats potato chips, Werther's caramels and fruit all morning.  She does it sneakily, hiding candies under her robe when the children or I come into her room.  It's not like we can't see what she is doing.  But what makes the selfishness worse is the lunchtime adventures; today, we hit Montana's, her new favourite bistro.  I have stopped ordering meals and even the children are tired of the weekly outing, but the matriarch wanted to be thanked as if she was doing us a favour by treating this time.  I want to say she is being generous, because she is, and I want to feel she is being kind, because she is, but in my heart, I know we go out because the matriarch wants the trip.

Today, to make matters worse, she told me she would rather have the doggy-bag than my cooking.  I didn't say anything.  I am learning to bite my tongue without hurting myself.  Cooking is a sensitive issue here because I am not a good cook; in my kitchen, there are easily 50 cookbooks and I do try to improve.  But, honestly, I don't like cooking.  My husband is a much better cook, but one of us has to work; so the family gets along on my cooking and the children's fantastic baking (he taught them).  And, the matriarch knows this.  So, when she is being vindictive for whatever reason, she aims for my sore spot.  I used to have this image of a kind and tender granny but my mother-in-law is not living up to it and it is my problem; she has no problems with her self.   After 98 years, one would think not.  But I wonder when that moment happens when the old become cared for instead of being the carers; and if they ever appreciate the assistance.  Some do, I guess, and some don't.  It just it isn't fair if you happen to live with the latter.

Yes, I know this is my vindictiveness being public about all this; but, could you tell your partner this sort of stuff about his/ her parent?  And, friends, kind as they are, get sick of it.  I get sick of it and it's not all bad.  She can be very good to the children.  She can be very good to my husband and to me.  But, then she says things like, "They put on a very good Thanksgiving Dinner at the church--why can't we go there?"

p.s. I am not a good cook does not mean I am a bad cook, more mediocre and my husband does the turkey!

Jumping the Gun

God, I feel surrounded by death right now.  The matriarch's brother-in-law died last week; I found out unexpectedly, yesterday.  It is kind of odd because we thought he was already dead.  Not so, but is now.  So, maybe the sister-in-law is not doomed to die...what an odd way of thinking.  There is no charity of spirit today.  the matriarch got up, sat at the table to wait for her breakfast, then went upstairs to eat potato chips.  She talked about her sister-in-law and how she would have no one to visit anymore.  Honestly, she made it sound as if she was confined here, imprisoned in a jail.  And, she had absolutely no sympathy for her sister-in-law who leaves no one behind, her child is already dead and her husband--well, I don't quite that situation.  But the matriarch talked as if she was being deprived rather than her sister-in-law's reality.  I think this kind of selfishness is character not age.

Third Death, almost

Well, we've heard about the third death--sort of.  The matriarch's sister-in-law has cysts on her breast and she has to see a surgeon; it wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't 80 and hadn't just had a lumpectomy seven months ago.  She saw her oncologist last month and nothing was there and, now, both breasts are lumpy.  I feel so sorry for her.  And, I feel so sorry for the matriarch; this is the last person of her husband's generation to still be alive.  The worry could kill my mother-in-law but I don't think so...The sister-in-law is already suffering from fatigue;  her last radiation treatment was four months ago and she has been great; the matriarch went to visit her.  But this new tiredness is being attributed to those treatments and I don't believe they are connected.  My mother-in-law is so sad this evening.

Peanut Butter and Jelly, 3 Days in a Row

Maybe it is the sugar keeping the matriarch alive...For the third night in a row, she has chosen to eat open faced PB & J sandwiches.  The one night, we ate them after the children's activities, seems to have really set my mother-in-law off and she is eating them for either lunch or dinner every day.  The jelly or jam doesn't seem to be a big deal, today was homemade gooseberry jelly, yesterday it was my raspberry jam.  But the bread must be really covered, really, really covered with peanut butter.  I don't know.  I feel like a reporter investigating the culinary habits of seniors.  Can sugar boosts keep a person alive?  It has been mentioned to me that seniors need strong flavours to really taste something; but, I thought that applied only to smokers or former smokers.  She does use a lot of salt; the sugar is getting worse as we are now halfway through our fourth 4 kilo bag since July; I wonder about her taste buds.

Ironically, enough, the matriarch has got it into her head that my husband wants 50 (!!!) jars of her homemade chili sauce.  I wouldn't mind making it but we still have 20 or so jars of last year's chili sauce left.  My kids are more salsa people and grandma's chili sauce isn't spicy enough.  And, my husband doesn't eat it.  He says he would if it was on the table but he doesn't ask for it if it's not there.  The days it is there, his mother eats it on everything, which is okay, but no one else touches it.  Particularly, the big guy.  I am being cruel.  Just the work falls to me and I don't want to do it; I don't want to move 50 jars of chili sauce around the house looking for places to store it; I don't want to waste the food; and I don't want to spend my fiftieth birthday looking at 10 year old cans of chili sauce I won't dump because it is the last thing my mother-in-law made.  Isn't this just silly?

Who Does the Dishes?

My mother-in-law still thinks it's a privilege for the children to wash dishes with in-door plumbing.  Right now, there are tears happening as the children fight it out to see who washes the dishes.  We're Luddites; we don't have a dishwasher.  And, it can become a loud event as the debate ensues over whose turn it is.  The matriarch went upstairs disgusted; she even used the term to the children.  You know you would think she would understand they are just children.  But her remarks silenced the arguments.  They were unfair.  I let my husband deal with her because I was afraid I would say something inappropriate.  It's not like she ever offers to help and I understand it because she is 98; but why she wouldn't offer the same understanding to my children? 

As the arguing interrupts into louder terms of unfairness, I think of my mother-in-law and her Victorian Attitude: children should be seen and not heard.  I think the matriarch misses a lot because she doesn't let the children talk.  They have such interesting things to say.  Even as they argue, my children are laughing with and at each other; my husband knows he has no control and finds it kind of funny, too.  If it was all anger every weekend, it wouldn't resolve itself; and, it does.  And, it will happen again next Saturday, despite the calendar and the schedule...they are kids.  My poor mother-in-law, parenthood came late to her and I think grandparenthood has also missed its chance.

Film Premieres, Comics and Chili

We took my mother-in-law to a film premiere this evening; all of my children participated in an environmental film camp and a big premiere with a red carpet was arranged for all participants.  It was fantastic and the matriarch enjoyed every minute...I can't imagine there are too many 98 year olds running around theatres these days.  She could hear, if not see, most of the three minute films and didn't mind staying for the reception.  In some ways, she has become something of a show and tell person; I introduced her to Rob Spencer, the bionic Canadian who put a camera in his eye, and comic, Albert Nerenberg, laughologist and maker of the film, Laughology.  We got a picture of the three of them and Mr. Nerenberg was incredibly nice especially when he listened to her talk about family born over 100 hundred years ago.  On the way home, the matriarch talked about him and how he had pushed a boy off the stage--he hadn't it was part of an act, but she did connect with the right person.  It was quite something.  Mind, the hunger situation doesn't seem to change.  On the way home, at 11 o'clock at night, we had to stop and pick up food at Tim Hortons; who else but my mother-in-law would eat chili before going to bed?